Oswego County to spend more than $1 million to house inmates in other jails

Oswego, NY -- The Oswego County Legislature will vote Oct. 11 on whether to spend $250,000 more to ship inmates to other jails.

Sheriff Reuel Todd said Thursday that would bring the total the county has paid to house inmates in other jails to $1.05 million this year. The Oswego County jail is full.

An additional $400,000 was approved for these payments earlier in the year and the legislature approved another $400,000 in September.

The county jail in Oswego has 159 beds and is allowed to add up to eight more portable beds.

Todd said since the end of last year, the inmate numbers have exploded. He budgeted $100,000 for these payments for inmates being sent to other jails when putting together his 2012 budget in July 2011. He said the county didn’t have a problem then and in fact, the jail had empty beds.

But this year inmate numbers have increased due to state parolees the county has to house, an increase in residents waiting to be sentenced, an increase in residents sentenced to the county jail and an increase in arrests.

He has allocated $1.5 million in his 2013 budget proposal to pay for shipping inmates to other jails.

District Attorney Gregory Oakes said between 2006 and 2010, there was an annual average of 641 felony arrests. In 2011, there were 898 felony arrests; that’s a 40 percent increase. The county is on pace to have more than 1,000 felony arrests in 2012.

“While I believe the increase in arrests is partially explained by better enforcement by police agencies, unfortunately, the primary explanation is that the amount of crime has increased,” Oakes said. “Quite simply, we are seeing more property crimes and drug-related crimes.”

He said some of this is attributed to the poor economy, unemployment and drug abuse.

It costs $90 a day per inmate to be housed in another county jail, Todd said. On average, about 45 inmates a day have been sent to other county jails, such as those in Madison, Cayuga, Oneida, Wayne, Seneca and Ontario counties.

He said the numbers are going down. As of Thursday, he had only 12 inmates in other jails. He expects that will jump to 45 over the weekend when local residents sentenced to weekends in jail show up for their jail time.

He said policies begun by the probation and district attorney offices have helped keep some of the defendants out of jail while making their way through the court system.